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Saddest day of my life - Yu Suzuki is leaving Sega

I feel like crying. I can't explain without sounding sappy how much I've admired Yu Suzuki. He's been my hero since I was a very young kid, when I discovered that there was one man responsible for all the sega arcade games of my youth. I've been playing Yu Suzuki games since birth. His name was the very first video game developer's name I ever learned, after reading an article about him in an issue of EGM in 1991. He inspired me to take up computer programming. He is the reason I am who I am today.

He is, in my opinion, the greatest video game maker of all time. He is, in the most literal sense of the word, my hero.

SEGA left SEGA somewhere between 1 and 10 years ago. That Yu is leaving really is only a surprise in that it took this long. Has he announced any future plans? Honestly if he got a job with a third party publisher I could see some great things in the future.

I mean, dude could end out working on a Conker or Metroid Prime... that's not bad news by any standard.

He's also staying on as an advisor and has his OWN COMPANY and gets to do what he wants now.

The man was a visionary, the kind of Miyamoto Sega needed to establish itself and keep things fresh throughout the years. Hang-On, Space Harrier, After Burner, Virtua Fighter & Virtua Cop, Shenmue. . . I don't really think most folks here understand the kind of impact Suzuki has had on the industry, and his leaving signifies a very unfortunate truth right now: innovation takes a backseat to sales numbers as far as publishers are concerned. The man deserved better than to have his ideas blocked by Sega's flagging finances during the late 90's and early 2000's, so I hope he at least gets a nice retirement package from them.

It's really not that sad, Yu wanted to move on and he is staying as an advisor. YS industries is his main focus now, and he left an amazing legacy in his wake. To be honest with you SEGA haven't been the best to him in the last decade, and I'm surprised he stayed as long as his did.

I'll admit that I was on the hate bandwagon at first, but I'm willing to overlook the "saddest day of my life" hyperbole because we all do it.

Still, this actually sounds like good news to me. If there's anything to feel bad about, it's Sega's lack of quality games since the Dreamcast era, and the fact that they've (presumably) strangled this man's creative output during that time.

Feeling anything but disappointment or dissatisfaction with the Sega of recent years is akin to a battered wife sticking with her abusive spouse because she used to be in love with him, can't imagine life after escape, or maybe spawned some kids with him. So, TSR, I know you're sad right now, but a split is probably the best thing that could have happened. At least for the battered wife.

Companies change, people change, the whole world changes. However, you can still respect the games Sega and Yu Suzuki created in their good days. Those games and memories are not undone by any decision made in the future.